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ABOUT ME
JALIL MUSTAFFA BISHOP
Dr. Jalil Mustaffa Bishop co-founded a non-profit called the Equity Research Cooperative (EqRC). The multi-million dollar cooperative conducts racial justice research on dismantling racism and inequity, redistributing its money, and providing grassroots collectives and people of color with organizational support and funding opportunities. As an organization, EqRC aims to live out the justice we want to see in the world. In addition, Jalil is the President of the MUME Collective, a consulting organization providing evaluation, research, and capacity-building services to campaigns, projects, and organizations. Through deep collaborations, his work has secured nearly $12 million in grants. Each grant focused on Black people and communities of color while allocating money directly to them and highlighting their lived experiences.
Jalil also is a sought-after expert for his national research projects, grassroots policymaking, and high-impact evaluations, all coupled with critical lens to understand what justice requires. Throughout his career, he has been a Vice-Provost Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, an Assistant Professor of Education at Villanova University, a national advocate on college affordability and the Black student debt crisis, and a creator and evaluator of pipeline programs for people of color to activist movements, medical schools, the tech industry, higher education, doctoral programs, and NSF-STEM programs.
He grew up in Twinsburg Heights, Ohio —a 100-year-old working-class Black neighborhood that thrives despite rampant structural racism. His roots in the community shape his lifelong pursuit of racial justice as collective action and material impact. Jalil’s research and advocacy are known for threading intersectional analysis on how racism and anti-racism function across housing, education, workforce development, and policymaking. He aims to always highlight how Black people build lives against and beyond racism—what he refers to as Black lifemaking.